


missing the bullet

by AlexiaBlackbriar13



Series: lexi’s season 8 fics [5]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: But in this Mia ends up getting shot, F/M, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Medical Descriptions, Serious Injuries, Smoak-Queen Family, So in the promo Oliver jumps in front of a bullet for Mia, Sort of a spec for 8x05 but also an alternate spec?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-27 03:36:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21385438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexiaBlackbriar13/pseuds/AlexiaBlackbriar13
Summary: After Oliver and Mia's cage match wins in Russia, Mia ends up getting shot when Oliver tackles the man aiming at her rather than jumping in front of the bullet.(A sort of alternate spec for 8x05)
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Series: lexi’s season 8 fics [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1538746
Comments: 11
Kudos: 190





	missing the bullet

**Author's Note:**

> so in the 8x05 promo it looks like a russian dude tries to shoot mia and oliver jumps in front of her to shield her, taking the bullet for her.
> 
> this is sort of an alternative to that, where oliver doesn't end up protecting her and mia ends up getting shot. because ANGST. the beautiful angst.

After Oliver and Mia defeated all of his cage match contestants as an incredible father-daughter fighting duo, the owner of the gym running the underground operation is majorly pissed off with them both, as they’ve cheated him out of thousands of rubles of prize money. When the man bursts in, aiming a gun at his daughter and his finger squeezing on the trigger, Oliver instantly panics at the sight of his child being threatened, cold sharp fear rushing through his veins.

“_MIA!_”

He’s torn between two split-second decisions: try and tackle the man shooting at his daughter, or throw himself in front of the bullet. In the end, Oliver doesn’t get to choose. His body reacts instinctively - and he slams into the Russian at full force, throwing him to the ground and pinning him there. Wrapping his arm around his throat, Oliver chokes him unconscious within ten seconds. When he peers up frantically, his agitated gaze meets Mia’s wide green eyes.

She emits a quiet whimper of pain, her eyes fluttering shut. Horror strikes him as he glances down and sees blossoming crimson on her left side. By tackling the Russian, he may have taken out the man holding the gun, but he wasn’t able to stop him before he squeezed off a shot. His daughter _has been shot_. Oliver drops the man’s unconscious body and lurches to his feet, running towards her, blood pounding in his ears.

“Dad,” Mia murmurs shakily. It’s almost exactly the same iteration as when she first appeared in the Foundry in front of him.

Her knees give out and she crumbles. Oliver dives to catch her and slow her collapse to the floor, cradling Mia against his chest as he guides her down, cushioning her head. She’s breathing heavily and raspily, face contorted in agony. Oliver feels numb. He just watched his daughter get shot. He could have prevented it, but he didn’t stop the Russian in time. She’s injured, _badly_, his baby girl has a bullet wound in her abdomen side. And it’s his fault.

“Mia!? Mia -” Oliver pats her cheeks, trying to get her to concentrate on him. She can’t - her mouth is open in a silent scream, her chest jerking in torment. “Oh god.”

Her tears the bottom of his daughter’s shirt off to expose the wound and after hastily examining it, presses his trembling hands on top to apply pressure and hopefully reduce her blood loss. Mia releases another distressed noise and tries to push him away weakly. Shushing her gently, Oliver ignores the blood straining his hands and soaking into his own clothes as he shuffles closer, kneeling by her side. When he sees that her eyes are slipping closed again, he increases the pressure he’s applying, his heart clenching in anguish when it causes her to cry out.

“So this is what getting shot feels like,” Mia wheezes.

“Mia, stay awake,” he demands, his voice choked. “Don’t - don’t pass out, okay? Stay with me, kid. You’re gonna be fine.” When Mia’s head lolls back, he shakes her gently. “Hey. Hey! Don’t you dare fall asleep. You might be an adult, but you’re still my daughter, I _will_ ground you!”

“Stop babying me,” she complains in a slur.

She’s in shock, for sure. She’s ashen and cold beneath his hands, although that might be just because her body runs at a lower temperature, something he discovered back in Star City when Mia shyly asked him for an extra blanket for her bed despite the apartment being a reasonable 70 degrees F. Unfocused and growing paler by the minute, Mia’s fingers latch onto her father’s shirt, tangling into the fabric. Oliver is worried - _very_ worried. His daughter desperately needs medical attention and fast. He taps comms, but they’re down, so there’s no way he can get in contact with William.

“Yep, this is what being shot feels like,” Oliver answers her, schooling his tone into one of calmness, even though he’s internally freaking out. “So now you know how awful it is, you’re going to definitely avoid getting shot again in the future, aren’t you?”

“S’not like I asked for it,” she mutters. “Frack, this hurts. But… not as much as I was expecting?”

She sounds confused. Oliver brushes her wavy blonde hair away from her face gently. “Because you’re hyped up on adrenaline. Once it passes, you’ll barely be able to think, let alone talk.”

Mia snorts, grimacing. “Great. Where’s William? Has he spoken to you?”

“Not responding. Comms are down.” Oliver casts a nervous glance over to the unconscious Russian. If he concentrates, he can hear the underground gym patrons cheering through yet another cage match that he and Mia were exempt from, on the grounds that the duo was too powerful, and nobody was willing to bet against them anymore. Somebody will come and check on the owner soon, and if he and Mia are still here when that happens, the next bullet will be going through one of their heads. “We have to get out of here. Your brother would have headed straight back to the safehouse as soon as he realized he can’t reach us. I’m going to have to carry you to the car.”

His daughter frowns up at him. “We didn’t come here in a car.”

“I know.”

Mia eyes him with a hint of amusement and surprise. “Are you going to steal one?”

“Don’t tell your mom.”

Oliver leaves her for a second to go over to the unconscious Russian, tearing off a thick strip of fabric from the bullet of the guy’s shirt. He uses it as a bandage to maintain constant pressure on Mia’s wound. Rolling her over onto her side elicits another pained grunt from her. Luckily, it’s a through-and-though wound, so they don’t have to worry about the bullet being lodged inside of her. She doesn’t appear to have any damaged vital organs and she’s not bleeding excessively, so no major arteries have been hit. It’s not going to kill her to move her, he realizes in relief.

When Oliver bends down and eases his daughter into his arms, he cringes when she groans into his shoulder. “Dammit. I have no idea how you coped getting shot every other week when you started out as the Hood. This is the worst pain I’ve ever felt.”

“Felicity clearly exaggerated the Team Arrow stories she used to tell you,” he huffs, her hair tickling his chin. “It was more like once a month.”

Oliver makes sure that Mia is secure in his arms, tucking her head under his chin, before starting to hurry out of the compound. The freezing winds bite through their clothes as they step out into the night, causing Mia to begin shivering. She’s so light that it makes him worry about whether she’s eating enough - although Mia has been eating the meals he’s made for her, she’s turned down a lot of the snacks he’s offered, and Oliver suspects that she has a high metabolism like him and Felicity, so needs to eat more than she’s letting on.

“Bullets seem to have played a big part in your and Mom’s lives and relationship,” Mia mumbles into his collar. She’s starting to fade on him, blood loss and pain chipping away at her determination to stay awake. “Bullet-ridden laptop, Grandma shooting you, Mom getting shot by the Clock King, the limo attack after your first proposal…”

Oliver’s heart warms a little at the thought of Felicity telling Mia the chronicles of their lives as their little girl grew up, teaching her about her father even though he wasn’t alive to be present and tell those stories himself. “Sounds like your mom talked a lot about our adventures.” When she doesn’t reply, Oliver glances over at her sharply. “Mia?”

The reason she’s not talking is because she’s crying into his shoulder silently, muffling herself using his shirt. Mia has her face turned away from him, obviously trying to hide her tears. Oliver knows why; so far, since being transported to 2019, Mia has been very careful to avoid revealing any vulnerabilities to him and the others. She’s lowered her protective emotional barriers once or twice, like when they had their conversation in the bunker after he stopped her from killing Grant and then during their short discussion at Robert Queen’s grave. Oliver decides not to encourage her to talk. She seems to be focusing on staying conscious, so there’s no need to force a conversation to keep her awake.

“Stop staring at me,” she whispers. “S’embarrassing.”

“You’re being a lot braver than I was when I got shot for the first time,” he says, trying to reassure her. Oliver finds a car parked in front of a dark alley, and the fact that it’s night and there are no streetlights provides him the perfect cover for breaking into it. “I’m going to have to put you down for a couple of seconds,” he tells his daughter softly. “I’ll lean you against the car, okay?”

Mia nods groggily. The archer makes sure that she’s steady on her weight and most of her weight is leaning onto the car before he releases her. As he starts working on jacking the car, he keeps a concerned eye on her, just in case her legs give out and she slips down into a puddle on the gravel. Mia is resting her blood-covered hands over her wound, head tipped back while she grits her teeth. Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for him to break into the car and get the engine running. He turns the heater up before hurrying back around to help maneuver Mia into the passenger seat. When Oliver clambers into the driver’s seat… he turns to check on his daughter and is immediately alarmed to see that she’s passed out.

The drive to the safehouse is a tense one. Oliver almost swerves off the road several times because he has to keep glancing over at Mia to make sure she’s still breathing. He dumps the stolen car two blocks away and carries her the rest of the journey - half-running, cradling her like a child, out of breath and hysterical with panic when she doesn’t stir at all.

“Oh my god!” William shrieks, the moment Oliver shoulders his way into the apartment with Mia unconscious in his arms. He sprints forward to help with his sister, laying a towel down on the couch so they can gently place his sister down onto it. Her wound is still bleeding, although not as much as before. “She was shot!?”

“There’s a medical kit in the cupboard under the sink, go and get it,” he orders his son. William vanishes to grab it. If Oliver was short in tone with him, he doesn’t seem to mind or care. Mia’s hair has fallen across her face again, so he sweeps it back behind the pillow her head is resting it, so it frames her like a golden halo. “Mia, if you can hear me, kid, you’re safe and we got to the safehouse. Your brother is here with us and we’re going to patch you up, get you some painkillers. You’re going to be okay.”

William drags the medical kit over and begins rifling through it without any instruction from his father, making a small pile of antiseptic, gauze, bandages and various other things that they’ll need to treat the wound. Oliver can’t help but be surprised, and dismayed, because it means that Will has had to deal with treating wounds before. He preps a morphine shot and a tetanus shot as well, passing them over so Oliver can administer them. Mia frowns when the needles slip into her side, but doesn’t wake up. After disinfecting the wound, the two men manage to work together to cut off Mia’s bloody top, mopping up the blood and cleaning her off. William soaks some gauze with saline with shaking hands before packing it over his sister’s wound.

Oliver staggers back a step at the sight of his daughter’s torso - because she’s covered in scars. Most of them are just nicks and scrapes that have healed well, leaving faint white lines, but she has a couple of larger scars that look like they were made by knives. There have to be at least a dozen scars in total, three of them particularly bad ones. She’s been hurt before, most likely when she was cage fighting in Star City after running away from home, as she told him earlier, because she’s only been a vigilante for the past six months. Most of these scars are a year old, by his estimate. He covers his mouth, overwhelmed with emotions. He’s upset, and angry, and immensely _sad_ all at the same time. The sword wound in her neck is definitely going to scar, and that’s only half-healed. This bullet wound in her side is going to leave her with another one. Mia should not be covered in scars. This… this isn’t the life he wanted for his daughter.

“Mom’s gonna kill me,” Oliver thinks he hears William mutter. “We’re meant to protect each other, take care of each other… we promised her.”

“William, this isn’t on you,” he says heavily. “This is on me. I should have shielded your sister… it should have been me who took that bullet, not her.”

“_Neither_ of you should have got shot!” William snaps, his eyes filled with anger and fear. “I can’t lose you! Either of you! Mia is all I have in the future, and I know I have limited time with you because you - you die, Dad!

“Why are you shouting?”

Both Oliver and William’s eyes flash down to Mia. She’s blinking blearily up at them. Oliver finally feels like the ice grip around his heart, that started strangulating it the moment he heard the gunshot, is loosening.

“Hey,” he greets her softly, kneeling down beside the couch. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I was shot,” Mia says dryly.

“Oh, if she’s being snarky again, she’s already feeling way better,” William replies with a weak laugh. “Guess that morphine’s working well.” He pokes his sister’s forehead. “You gave Dad a heart attack.”

Mia exhales through her nose in a light chuckle, but immediately screws her face up. “Ow.”

“Yeah, painkillers may be kicking in, but you still don’t want to move,” Oliver tells her, lips ticking up into a smile. Resting a hand on her shoulder, he squeezes it lightly. “We still have to bandage you up, which I’ll warn you now, is going to hurt a lot. But then you need fluids, food, and rest. William, can you make some tea and toast for your sister, please? There are herbs in my bag, they’re from the island and accelerate healing.”

William hesitates, but seeing that his father has it covered, agrees and shuffles off to the apartment’s small kitchenette. Oliver helps Mia sit up so he can wind bandages around her waist, and holds his breath when his daughter rests her head on his shoulder with an exhausted sigh as he works. Mia has been reluctant to be physically close to him ever since she arrived in 2019 - she rarely initiates contact; the fact that she’s doing that now is meaningful. Oliver wants nothing more than to hug his daughter and just… hold her in his arms. Not like how he cradled her or carried her earlier, because she didn’t get a choice in that. He’d like them to be able to embrace each other properly.

“Thank you, Dad,” Mia whispers.

“For what?”

“This. Earlier. Comforting me, when I was… really scared.”

That astonishes Oliver. Mia doesn’t seem like the kind of person to ever admit her fears. She’s far too like him in that regard. He hates admitting when he’s afraid. “You were scared?”

“Don’t tell William,” is her instant response.

“William was scared too,” Oliver tells her, finishing up with the bandages and lying her back against the cushions. Once she’s settled, he collects a chair so he can sit by her side, easing down into it and wincing as his aching muscles twinge. “He was horrified when I carried you in. He believes that he should have protected you.”

He knows that must be a part of William that feels protective over his sister because of what happened to their teammate, Zoe, Rene’s daughter. She was murdered in front of Mia in 2040 by the leader of the Deathstroke gang, who happens to be John’s adult son JJ. There’s so much to go into with that, but the thing that’s most apparent to Oliver is that both Mia and William are suffering from survivor’s guilt. Mia had Zoe die in her arms and William had to listen to it over comms.

“Stop worrying.”

Oliver startles from his thoughts, eyes flicking down to meet his daughter’s. Mia’s eyes half-lidded again, but this time from the morphine. “I’m always going to worry about you and your brother, I’m your dad. I’m especially going to worry when one of my kids has been shot.” He pauses and then adds carefully, “Although I see you’ve had your fair share of battle-wounds before.”

Mia’s brow furrows in bemusement. When he nods down at her torso, she follows his gaze down and upon seeing he’s looking at her scars, sighs like the weight of the world is on her shoulders. “William did tell you that the future is a terrible place. I don’t want you to pity me, Dad.”

“I don’t,” he responds. “But I’m allowed to feel empathetic, aren’t I? My body is 20% scar tissue. Did you know that?”

She nods. “Mom told me.”

“I, more than anybody, understand that scars are marks of survival and badges of strength. That doesn’t mean that I’m not going to hate that you’ve been injured before.”

Mia shoots him a shrewd look, scrutinizing him cautiously. She shifts around on the couch - gasping from pain, but not deterred - and shows Oliver her left arm, where just above her elbow, there’s a pale, but thick scar. It’s by far the worst one that he’s seen on her. “From my first year in Starling, my ninth cage fight. I got offered five thousand dollars if I took on five guys at once. I won, but at a cost. Compound fracture. If Connor hadn’t been waiting for me, I wouldn’t have made it home, I don’t think. It was a nightmare to set, and Connor had to stitch me up while I was practically high on codeine.” She sniffs, rolling onto her back. “Never told Mom about it, but I suspect Connor snitched on me to his dad, who would have informed her.” Oliver barely gets time to narrow his eyes, wondering what kind of close relationship his daughter and Connor have, before Mia is moving on, tracing a scar on her right shoulder with her left hand’s fingertips. “This was made by a knife the day after my nineteenth birthday. The man I beat in a cage fight that night attacked me in an alley because he was angry about losing.”

“Are all of your scars from your cage fighting career?” Oliver asks, his voice hoarse.

“No.” She taps a small line above her left hip. “I tripped down the cabin porch when I five.”

That makes Oliver laugh. Only because he remembers how on their third day at the cabin, Felicity was running after him as he headed off to the farmer’s market to remind him to buy mint chip icecream, and she tripped down the porch stairs as well - thankfully straight into Oliver’s arms, so she and fetus Mia weren’t hurt.

“A couple of the smaller scars are from training with Aunt Nyssa,” Mia muses, examining her arms. “I trained with her every weekend from the age of four until I was ten, and then every summer since then.”

Oliver tries to imagine a tiny blonde girl being trained how to kickbox and spar by Nyssa Al Ghul, and finds himself wondering what exactly Nyssa trained her in. Archery, obviously. Knowing Nyssa, she probably insisted on Mia learning how to utilize a sword and throwing knives. Hand-to-hand is a skill Mia has shown she is very adept at. Felicity must have thought that Mia needed to be trained in self-defense so she could protect herself in the future. How awful must it truly be, for Felicity, who was so determined to give their children normal, safe lives, to decide that their daughter required guidance from an assassin?

“Tea and toast!” William announces his return, carrying over a mug and a plate. “The tea is disgusting, and the toast is buttered because we don’t have any jelly.”

“Joy,” Mia replies sarcastically.

Oliver smirks and pats her knee as he stands, so that William can take his place on the chair. “I’ll leave your brother to watch over you,” he says quietly. “I’ve got to call John to check in anyway. Try and rest, okay?”

She nods. “I’ll try.” As Oliver turns away, running his hands over his face tiredly, Mia tugs at the back of his shirt. “You might want to shower and change clothes. You’re covered in my blood.”

She’s not wrong. Her blood is soaked into his pants and shirt, and has dried at this point, leaving him feeling stiff and sticky. “Good point.” Oliver bends over to brush an affectionate kiss against her forehead, heart fluttering when Mia gasps. He claps his hand on William’s shoulder. “I’ll be in the other room if either of you needs me. Just shout. You -” he points at his daughter. “Don’t try and get up without help. Consider yourself grounded.”

“Why?” Mia wrinkles her nose.

“Because I told you I would ground you if you passed out on me, and you did. Therefore, grounded. William is your guard.”

“I’ll make sure she doesn’t push herself,” William reassures.

“Is everybody in our family annoyingly overprotective?” Mia mutters.

William raises an eyebrow at her. “Er, yeah, they are when you go and get yourself shot. And I love how you’re making out that _you’re _not overprotective as well.” He presses the mug of tea into her hands insistently. “C’mon, tea time. Mild warning to you… it will probably make you gag.”

Mia rolls her eyes, as if she thinks he’s exaggerating. Knowing precisely how terrible the tea is, Oliver watches in amusement as his daughter takes a sip of the tea - and promptly spits it out in disgust. “What the frack!? Are you trying to poison me?” she hisses at her brother.

“I warned you! And Dad’s the one who told me to make it.”

“Yeah, but I’m sure Dad would have made it taste less like sewage.”

Oliver leaves his kids bickering in the living room, shaking his head fondly. Mia may have been shot, but she’s going to be fine. He and William will make sure of that. He has no idea what he would do or how he would react if she actually died… it’s unthinkable for him. Oliver can’t even comprehend that. He wouldn’t have hesitated to take that bullet for Mia; he will do whatever it takes to protect his family - his children and Felicity. Even if that means dying for them.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed xx i would really appreciate it if you left kudos and a comment!!
> 
> twitter: @lexiblackbriar  
tumblr: @alexiablackbriar13


End file.
